The Wonder Book Of Knowledge Part 40

The "dog-watch" is a nautical term distinguis.h.i.+ng two watches of two hours each, from 4 to 6 P. M. and 6 to 8 P. M.

All the other watches count four hours each, and without the introduction of the dog-watches, the same hours would always fall to be kept as watch by the same portion of the crew.

How Much Gold has a 14-Carat Ring?

One often speaks of a ring as being 14-carat gold, or of 22- or 18-carat watch cases or jewelry, but do all of us know just what we mean by 14, 18 or 22 carat?

Gold is divided into twenty-four parts--that is, pure gold is said to contain twenty-four carats--the carat being just a measurement term. A ring or watch case marked 14K or 18K means that fourteen or eighteen parts of it are pure gold, the balance of the twenty-four carats being some sort of alloy, copper being generally used. If articles of jewelry were made of pure gold they would not wear well, as gold is a very soft metal, and it is, therefore, necessary to mix the gold with some harder substance.

What is an Electro-Magnet?

An electro-magnet is a piece of iron temporarily converted into a magnet by means of a current of electricity sent through a wire which is coiled around it. The wire is usually covered with silk, cotton, gutta percha or some other insulator, to prevent the current from leaping across, and compel it to travel through the whole length of the wire.

The more pure and soft the iron is, the stronger will its magnetism be while it lasts, and the more completely will it disappear when the current stops. Steel is less affected than soft iron for the time, but remains permanently magnetized after the current ceases. Electro-magnets are usually much more powerful than other magnets of the same size.

The iron which is magnetized by the current pa.s.sing around it is called the core. It is frequently straight, the wire being wound upon it like thread upon a reel; but very frequently it has the shape of a U or horseshoe, the wire being coiled round the two ends and the bend of the U left uncovered.

The Story in a Pin[25]

A pin, so common and so cheap today, was once so expensive that only the wealthy could afford even a few. The term pin-money dates from that time and originally came from the allowance a husband gave his wife to purchase pins.

From an historical point of view, it appears that the need of something with which to fasten together pieces of cloth and like material has been met from ancient times by various devices. Among the remains of the bronze age are found pins and brooches of bronze. In Egyptian tombs have been found elaborate and costly pins, which range in sizes from two inches to seven or eight inches long, and have large gold heads or bands of gold around the upper end. Designs were often worked on these heads and bands. The largest of these pins were probably used for fastening the hair. Till the middle of the sixteenth century the poorer cla.s.s in England used rude skewers of wood, while the more fortunate had pins made of gold, silver and bra.s.s. The Indians, in the ancient cities of Mexico, satisfied their need for pins by using the thorn of the agave.

As early as 1483, pins were important enough in England to warrant the pa.s.sing of a law by Parliament prohibiting their importation. By 1540, however, they were being imported in large quant.i.ties from France.

Parliament again pa.s.sed a law regarding pins in 1543. This act provided that "no person shall put to sale any pins, but only such as shall be double-headed, and have the heads soldered fast to the shank of the pin, well smoothed, and shanks well shapen, the points well round filed, canted, and sharpened." Some pins of good quality were made at this time, but a large portion of those against which the legislative enactment was directed were made of iron wire, blanched and pa.s.sed for bra.s.s pins. Only three years after this prohibitory law was pa.s.sed it became obsolete because of the improvements which had been made in the production of these articles. England continued to receive its supply from France until John Tilsby began their manufacture in Gloucesters.h.i.+re. His business increased to such an extent that in a few years he had 1,500 people in his employ. In 1636 the pinmakers of London formed a corporation and established the industry of Bristol and Birmingham. This latter city is still the center of the industry in England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST PIN IS A FLAT-HEADED COPPER PIN PROBABLY USED FOR FASTENING HAIR. THE SECOND IS A STAR-HEADED BRONZE PIN. BOTH ARE OF THE TYPES WHICH HAVE BEEN FOUND AMONG THE REMAINS OF THE BRONZE AGE. THE THIRD PIN IS A HANDMADE PIN OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]

During this period the pins were made with two coils of wire fastened at one end of a length of wire, the other end of which was sharpened. First a wire, somewhat finer than that which was to be used for the pin, was coiled around a spit on a lathe. This was cut up into sections, each consisting of two turns. These coils were then annealed or softened and placed in a heap. Boys stuck the ends of the pins, which had been cut to the proper length, into this pile until a coil stuck. A workman pressed this coil in a die to make it hold to the pin. The head was then soldered and the other end of the pin filed and sharpened. Finally the pin was straightened and blanched or whitened.

In the United States the colonists early felt the need of local production. The colonial legislature of Carolina offered prizes in 1775 for the first native-made pins and needles. The first American pins were made in Rhode Island, during the Revolution, by Jeremiah Wilkinson.

About the same time, Samuel Sloc.u.m made pins in Providence. These were handmade with twisted wire heads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A VIEW OF THE PIN MACHINE ROOM IN A MODERN PINMAKING PLANT

There are many types of pin machines which make anywhere from ninety to three hundred pins a minute, depending on the quality of the pin made.]

Pinmaking machines were first invented in the United States. During the War of 1812, the industry was started because of the difficulty of getting pins from England, where most of them were made. The industry was not successful, however, till 1836, when the Howe Manufacturing Company was formed at Birmingham, Conn. It is a curious coincident that the first successful American pin manufacturing company, making the new machine-made pins, should be established in the Connecticut town of the same name as the English city which had been the center of pinmaking for nearly two hundred years.

In 1817 a paper was filed at the patent office by Seth Hunt, describing a machine for making pins with "head, shaft, and point in one entire piece." This machine, however, did not come into use. Lemuel W. Wright, of New Hamps.h.i.+re, secured, in 1824, an English patent for a machine for making solid-headed pins. This was the beginning of the present industry. A factory equipped with Wright's machines was established in London, but was not successful. Daniel Foot-Taylen, of Birmingham, purchased this equipment and secured an extension of Wright's patents for five years from 1838. He carried the production of machine-made pins to a commercial basis. Wright's machines, however, did not complete all operations. Dr. John Neland Howe, a physician of Bellevue Hospital, New York City, formed a company in 1832 for the manufacture of pins. This concern was not successful, but in 1835 a second company was formed by Dr. Howe, who had great faith in the future of the industry. Nine years later, Samuel Sloc.u.m, of Connecticut, invented a new machine for sticking the pins on papers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WHITENING ROOM, WHERE THE PINS ARE CLEANED AND PLATED

In the tumbling barrels the pins are cleaned and dried by tumbling in sawdust which has been heated in the ovens in the center background.]

Since that time there have been many pin machines developed, each accomplis.h.i.+ng the same result in slightly different ways. In each case a special stiff pin wire is drawn into the machine from a large hank, which is placed on a drum on the machine. The wire is first pa.s.sed through a series of rapidly revolving, straightening rolls which take out all twists and kinks. The proper length of wire is fed into the machine automatically, and the end is gripped by a set of jaws. A small part of the end of the wire extends beyond the jaws. This is struck several rapid blows by a die called the header. After the head is thus formed, the wire is cut off to the proper length and is then ready to be pointed. It is now carried along by a shaft having a screw thread, and is made to revolve rapidly by a belt which pa.s.ses over it. The end to be pointed pa.s.ses over a series of coa.r.s.e, medium and fine revolving files or cutters. The pin now drops into a pan, ready to be finished after being inspected.

In the finis.h.i.+ng room, the pins are put into a revolving or tumbling barrel and are rolled in sawdust, which absorbs all the oil, leaving them clean and bright. They are now dropped through a blower, where the sawdust is separated from the pins. The whitening is done by boiling the pins in a large copper kettle, which also contains layers of grained tin and a solution of argol or bitartrate of potash. After boiling for five or six hours, they have a thin coating of tin, which gives them their silvery appearance. Again they are cleaned, this time being washed in clean water, then tumbled in strong soap water, and finally tumbled in hot sawdust to dry them. The pins are separated from the sawdust as before. From there the pins go to the sticking department, where they are stuck on papers as you buy them. The sticking machine is of a simple construction, but is wonderful in operation, and requires no attention by the operator, except to keep it supplied with pins and papers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIZES]

The pins are put into a vibrating hopper, which slopes slightly towards the sticking machine. The conductor from the hopper to the machine is made of two strips of steel, down which the pins, held by their heads, slide. They are taken from the conductor by a screw thread and fed to the carrier, which takes thirty pins at a time and places them in front of a set of thirty punches. They are then forced along thirty grooves in the steel clamps, which crimp the paper, and on through the crimp. Thus a whole row of pins is stuck at once. The paper is now advanced the proper distance, and another row is stuck. When the center of the paper is reached, after six rows have been stuck, the machine automatically s.p.a.ces the paper so as to skip the s.p.a.ce used for the brand name. Then six more rows are stuck, and the operator removes the completed paper and inserts another without stopping the machine. These papers are inspected to make certain that no poorly made pins have gotten by the former inspection, are rolled and packed, usually in boxes of twelve papers each.

Pins today are made in many sizes from the 3-1/2-inch stout blanket pins down to the fine, slender, bronze pins used by entomologists, 4,500 of which pins make an ounce. Toilet pins are usually made in six sizes as shown in the ill.u.s.trations. Besides the common or toilet pins, there are today numerous special bank and desk pins which are made to meet special requirements.

Pin production in the United States has reached a high stage of development. The number of pins made in 1914 reached the tremendous total of 25,000,000,000. These figures are almost too great for comprehension. If all the pin wire used for these 25,000,000,000 pins were in one piece it would go around the earth fifteen times. Safety pins, hooks and eyes, and hairpins, are generally made by pin concerns.

Each of these different articles require very ingenious machines. Many of them are almost human in their operation.

The popular name of the prominence seen in the front of the throat in a man is called the "Adam's apple" because of the story in the Old Testament, telling of the eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge by Adam, a piece being supposed to have lodged in his throat where the bulge appears.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ALPINE GLACIER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MER DE GLACE

The upper view shows the method of crossing a glacier. Each of the climbers is carrying an alpenstock, or staff with ice ax at one end and spike at the other. The lower view is the famous sea of ice in Switzerland.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOUNT RAINIER, WAs.h.i.+NGTON

One of the largest glacial systems in the world radiating from a single peak is situated on this mountain in western Was.h.i.+ngton.]

How are Glaciers Formed?

Away up in the high valleys formed among the peaks of the tallest mountain ranges of both the Rocky Mountains and the mountains of Alaska, as well as those in Switzerland and European countries, the snow freezes into great solid ma.s.ses because of the intense cold, and is forced by its own pressure into vast fields and mountains of ice. This ice is not like that produced by the freezing of water, but resembles more a very hard, solid form of snow, being composed of thin layers filled with air bubbles and more brittle and less transparent than the ice we are accustomed to see. Glaciers exist in all zones in which mountains rise above the snow-line, that is, the height where it is so cold that there is always snow.

We all know that if we press two pieces of ordinary ice together each piece will melt at the place where it touches the other and just in that same way the pressure of the ice above them causes glaciers to be continually moving downward, frequently reaching the borders of cultivation even. As they descend they also experience a gradual diminution from the action of the sun and rain, and from the heat of the earth. Investigation has shown that they move very much like a river, the middle and upper parts faster than the sides and bottom, similar to the way in which a ma.s.s of thick mortar or a quant.i.ty of pitch flows down an inclined trough. The rate at which a glacier moves generally varies from eighteen to twenty-four inches in a day.

The Glacier National Park is the latest addition to the series of great natural attractions which the United States Government has been acquiring for years. It lies in Northern Montana, between the Canadian border and the line of the Great Northern Railroad, and contains about a million acres of natural wonders, ranging from verdant valleys and wooded heights to glacial peaks. There are numerous glaciers and mountain lakes and the locality presents many examples of sublime scenery. The City of Tacoma, Was.h.i.+ngton, is situated in the valley below Mt. Rainier and commands a wonderful view of that mountain, on which there is situated one of the largest glacial systems in the world radiating from any single peak.

One of the most famous glaciers of the Alps is the Mer de Glace, belonging to Mont Blanc, in the valley of Chamouni, about fifty-seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. Those of the Andes and the Southern Alps of New Zealand are conspicuous, and they abound in Norway, Iceland and Spitzbergen, but it is more especially in the chain of Monte Rosa that the phenomena of glaciers are exhibited in their greatest wonder, as also in their most interesting phases from a scientific point of view.

How Large are Molecules?

When a great scientist named Sir William Thomson was asked about the size of a molecule, he replied: "If a drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth, the molecules would each occupy s.p.a.ces greater than those filled by small shot and smaller than those occupied by cricket b.a.l.l.s." That gives us about as clear an idea as it is possible to get of the size of molecules. And yet molecules are made up of even smaller particles, called atoms. An atom is the smallest division of anything that we know about now.

A molecule of water is made up of three atoms. Evaporation of water consists of the movement of these atoms in such a way as to make the liquid water change into a gas. Freezing water into ice is caused by making the molecules, and, in turn, the atoms, stick to each other. It takes a great deal of power to separate the molecules in water, and for this reason water was long regarded as something which could not be divided up, or, in other words, a basic element, such as the oxygen in the air.